MORGANTOWN — There’s the CPR training.
And the vaccines that must be charted.
Don’t forget the food allergies — lots and lots of those.
School nurses in the 21st century have gone well past the Band-Aid.
These days, they are health care professionals, social workers and student advocates — oftentimes before the first period of the day has ended, even.
On Tuesday night, the Monongalia County Board of Education (BOE) honored two such nurses in its system.
Ashley Watson and Kristen Grandstaff were written a prescription of appreciation by the board.
Both nurses were recognized for having earned national certification in their field.
Susan Haslebacher, the county’s head nurse and supervisor of school health services, said the two were already working hard.
Passing their national exams meant they worked that much harder, she said.
Watson has been a school nurse here for 5 years, and Grandstaff just completed her second year in the county.
Barbara Parsons, the BOE president who worked in hospital administration for several years, said she knows how hard all the BOE’s medical professionals work.
Their rounds in Monongalia include more than 20 schools and other facilities of learning.
And their patients come from every economic circumstance, not to mention international backgrounds.
“It’s a lot broader,” she said.
“Broader,” as in duties which are more extensive, she said.
The kinds of duties that may not stop when the dismissal bell rings at the end of the day.
Watson agreed.
“At a hospital, I could walk away from my job at the end of the day knowing that someone else would be there to pick it up,” she said.
“But in the school, you’re the one who picks it back up,” Parsons said.
“We pick it up every day,” Watson said.
“And it’s the next day, and the next day and the next day. And when we go home, we think about it.”
In other business, the board also heard updates on renovation projections at Morgantown High School and South Middle School.
The BOE meets next on June 26.
